Eons: View message "New member needs advice " in Eat Your Garden! Group

Message 17 of 272

New member needs advice

Hi, Fellow Gardeners;

I'm a novelist with a greenhouse and very little time to spend growing my own vegetables, but my cucumber plants are already nearly waist high (I'm tall), and my tomatoes aren't growing well. I wonder what I'm doing wrong. Any tips on successful tomato growing?

Thanks,
Jean

posted by JeanHenry

Another member of this group told me to take a Q-tip and gently rub it from one blossom to the other in case the bees were not doing their job. I started to get tomatoes shortly after I did this.

posted by Redpattikake
3 months ago

Soak your feet in Epsom salts. Take the leftover water and pour it on the base of your tomato plants. If you have some tired old calcium tablets tuck them into the soil at the base of the plant before watering. Egg shells are a slower alternative. The Epsom salt trick works great on roses, and I got crazy once and sprinkled the crystals around my shrubs, resulting in extremely rapid growth on slow growing shrubs. (I think that meant there was magnesium deficiency in my soil personally!)

Epsom salts have done some wonderful things for me and my plants! Tomatoes require much more calcium than the average vegetable. It helps prevent that black spot that often gets on the bottom of the tomatoes as they ripen.